


Breath

by IraBragi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU where we got to hear Shmi's side of the story, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Gen, I'm sorry this is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 20:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14269305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IraBragi/pseuds/IraBragi
Summary: So, I love Shmi Skywalker and I wish we got more from her perspective in the movies.  I've also always liked the idea that Anakin wasn't a virgin birth but rather fathered by another force user (either Sith, Jedi, or other.)  I put those two idea together and got this.





	Breath

**Author's Note:**

> So, I love Shmi Skywalker and I wish we got more from her perspective in the movies. I've also always liked the idea that Anakin wasn't a virgin birth but rather fathered by another force user (either Sith, Jedi, or other.) I put those two idea together and got this.

She was born dead. Small and blue with no air in her lungs. The midwife holds her gently and tells her not to breath. "There isn't anything for you here child. It's kinder this way."  Her lungs breath anyway.

Their first betrayal.

Some slaves fight their lot in life. They make trouble, they try to run, they try to fight for a better future.  Shmi never dose. Dead women have no future

She grows up. They tell her that she is alive. She grows older. Men tell her that she is beautiful.  She never bothers to believe them.

The man was young. At least in her eyes. Perhaps she would be young too if she had lived his life.   
  
She watches where his eye fall. She is far from stupid and this is an old game.  But when she feels her head begin to buzz and fade at the edges she pushes back. His hands might be on her body but there is no call for him to touch her mind.   
  
He jumps back like she had branded him. "What are you?" He breaths.

He tells her about a prophecy, about his grand mission, about how their child will be chosen and great.  He says that he's sorry. He thought he was doing the right thing. God he's young.  
  
"Will he live?" She asks, "my child? Will he live?"     
  
The man-boy tells her about a galaxy that is changing. About a name that echoes through time. About a legacy that brings change and peace.

He stays for a few weeks. They meet in the dark behind the workshop. He spreads his cloak out beneath them. She wonders if this is what it feels like to be alive.   
  
The night before he leaves (She thinks he expected her to cry. She thinks he might have.) she grabs his sleeve. "When you dream the future" Her voice is soft, maybe even scared, "Do you... do you see... am I there?"   
  
He looks surprised, then guilty. He tells her again about their son. The galaxy. The prophecy. She turns her face away. There is no future for dead women.   
  
Later she will look look another man in the eye and lie. Tell him a foolish story that he wants to hear.  She's never sure if the lie is for him or her.

\-----------------

Her son is born screaming.  Shmi cradles him close and scrapes every last part of herself into a ball and pushes it into him. She watches over him and tries to breath so much life into him that not even this place or their lot can take it away.

She always knew she would have to give him up. She is a dead woman on a dead, dusty planet that doesn't care if you live or die as long as you can work. But Anakin, Anakin, is so vibrantly alive.

He is lush greenery and falling water. He has no place here. She hands him over to the man who reminds her of another man and tells him not to look back.

She hides her tears and plods on.

Her lot changes a time or two. She is bought and sold. Eventually she is owned by a kind man. A man who says that he loves her.

She thinks that if her traitorous lungs must keep breathing this is not so hard a life with him.  She wonders if that is what they call love?

\----------------

Sometimes she still feels her son. Far away and living his life. Angry. Happy.  Frightened. It's not much, perhaps it is only a trick of her mind, but she wants to believe he's still alright, still living.

The world is changing. Even on her small dusty planet there are whispers. Shmi listens to them and pieces together the shape of the changes. She wonders how her son fits into them.

When the end comes she fights to live, a reflex honed from a lifetime of stubbornness, and wonders why they take such joy in her pain. By the time the final knife enters her chest it hardly hurts.  From half a galaxy away she can hear him cry out. He will come here, her son who is so much more than this place. He will come here and it will destroy him.

She curses then. Not at her life, not at the unfairness, not at the world that is so big and so cold.  She curses the destiny a boy spun for her so many years ago. Stupid words - she groans. Stupid, meaningless words.

She tastes the blood in her mouth as her breath finally, _finally_ , hisses away from her for the last time.

\--------------

Years pass.  One day, not very far from where Shmi Skywalker took her first, as well as last, breaths an old man hands a young boy a weapon and a destiny.  The boy picks up the weapon, and the destiny... well that he makes all on his own.

End


End file.
